The Basics

So, seeing as this is my 4^th post, I figured that it should be about time that I fill you all in on the basics of my situation since I’ve moved out here to Harrisburg. However, I am not quite sure how this post will end up, I may end up venturing into “non-basic-land” and teeter on the border of “in-depth-land.” If you were not expecting such an adventure then please accept my sincerest apologies for leading you astray with the title of this blog post. I hoped to upload some pictures from my road trip out here and write about that experience, but my computer literally will not allow it. I’ve tried to upload pictures and it says no, that it’s too full. And I think it’s just because my PC is lazy, and because he doesn’t get much exercise. I try to slim him down (remove programs) but he will not let me. Jerk.

So anyways. I am living in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which is the capitol of PA (raise your hand if you didn’t know that Harrisburg was the capitol of PA. If you raised your hand you are in the majority who figured that it was Philadelphia, and if not Philly, then definitely Pittsburgh, and if not Pittsburgh, then who the heck knows). I only figured this little factoid out when I visited Katie in early June. She picked me up from the airport in D.C. and as we were arriving into Harrisburg I saw a building that looked a lot like a capitol building, and that’s when it hit me. The fact that Harrisburg only has a population of around 50,000 also adds confusion as to why it is the Capitol of PA, the “Keystone State.” My only guess would be its central location in PA and because it’s right on the Susquehanna River.

I moved into a two bedroom apartment with a friend of mine who I met in Thailand a couple years ago named John-Michael. JM (as I like to call him) and I originally bonded in Thailand because of our affinity for hardcore music. We still share this affinity but also many more. It’s a pleasure to live with JM and it’s been a blessing. And it’s amazing how perfectly this living situation worked out, really. When I was looking to move to Harrisburg, JM had just moved into Harrisburg and was looking for a roommate. It was a match made in heaven (cute, I know). Anyways, we live in a section of Harrisburg called “Alison Hill.” It’s one of the more “rougher” areas of Harrisburg. There is a lot of poverty, unemployment, and crime related to drug use and drug trafficking. It’s extremely diverse. White people are the minority here. JM, Katie and her roommates, and I definitely stick out here. It’s a lot like stepping into a totally different culture. I will write more later about what it has been like living “on Alison Hill” as they say. One of the big perks of my living situation is that I am only two blocks from where Katie and her roommates live. It’s been great having her so close by, especially after four months of having her not so close by.

Shortly after I moved in, I started going to work at a used book warehouse called Midtown Scholar. It’s a job that Katie’s roommate, Desiree, helped set up for me. I am so thankful that she did. It doesn’t pay a whole lot, it’s not very rewarding, it gets kind of cold in the warehouse, but I have been blessed to have an income shortly after arriving here (especially when I didn’t have much money to start with), and I have met some amazing people there. The management treats their employees really well. They are really flexible and considerate and you can tell it’s about the people, not about how many books they are shipping out a day. My boss, Seung, has already bought me lunch six or seven times, and he usually brings in donuts at least once a week for everyone to partake in. My duties there are pretty simple. For a large portion of the day I will be wrapping books (putting the books in a plastic baggy and then taping a cardboard box around the book). I also “pull” books which means I take a stack of orders and go out and find the books in the warehouse and “pull” them off the shelf so that they can be wrapped. Sometimes I “shelve” books, which includes taking new shipments of books that arrive at the warehouse and putting them where there’s room on one of the many shelves in the warehouse so that one day they can be pulled, and then wrapped. I just started a new and exciting part of my job, think of it as a promotion of sorts. I now “dazzle.” Exciting I know. “Dazzlers” take the already wrapped books and scan the order form (which is taped onto the front of the package by the wrappers) into the computer database. This puts all the shipping info and stuff into a spreadsheet of sorts so that it can be printed out all neat and orderly on a sticker which we then adhere to the front of the package and toss in a gigantic cardboard box. I like dazzling because it’s something new. And because there are some funny/funky looking names out there that give me an occasional chuckle.

As of last week, I just started a new part-time job working as a case manager at a place called Susquehanna Harbor Safe Haven (SHSH). SHSH is a residential facility for chronically homeless men that have been diagnosed with a mental illness. It’s not a shelter, but it’s not an intense transitional housing, high demands and expectations, three-step program type of deal either. It’s a brand new building and program that just started this summer, so everyone is still trying to figure things out. Since it’s such a new program, it’s off to a little of a slow start (and because the people in charge of SHSH are also in charge of several other programs and they are inundated with work). So my first week basically consisted of me spending time with and getting to know the staff and residents that I will be working with. I’m not entirely sure what I’ll be doing there, and neither is my supervisor, but I’m looking forward to being involved with this program and maybe giving input that may help shape what the program will look like in the future.

So this is the first time that I’ve worked two jobs at the same time. They are both part-time jobs that are pretty flexible, which is really nice. But it still takes some time getting used to. I am really thankful that I have found these jobs and I look forward to how they both will end up in the future.

Since arriving in Harrisburg I have been going to a church called Harrisburg Brethren in Christ (or HBIC) with Katie and Desiree. It is very different from what I’m used to, but in an incredibly beautiful way. It’s the first congregation that I’ve been a part of that is racially diverse. It’s not quite 50% are white and 50% are black but it’s one of the most racially diverse churches in the nation. I know that it is because in my racial reconciliation class (that’s held at HBIC) that I’m going to with Desiree and Katie, I’ve learned that one of the most racially segregated times in the United States is on Sunday mornings. Something like less than 3% of churches in the United States have a congregation that is racially diverse (which means that at least 20% of the congregation consists of people that are a different skin color of the 80%). It’s really a shame that this is true. And it’s a big problem that I have no idea how to fix. But I am learning a lot. And as I’ve lived here I’ve been learning a lot about myself and my own racial misconceptions and prejudices that I never knew I had. The class is the first time that I have been in a group of people that openly and honestly talk about a topic that hardly anyone wants to acknowledge. It’s been eye-opening to say the least.

So that’s pretty much the basics. I hope to touch on certain aspects that I’ve mentioned in more detail in more posts in the future. Life is very different here, but I am loving it. I miss all my Cali peeps and my family but I know that I will see you soon and you remain in my heart and in my thoughts.

Some highlights so far have included:

-moving in to the surprise of a fully furnished room.

-the racial reconciliation class at HBIC

-eating lunch with a family of Burmese refugees in Alison Hill

-meeting so many new people

-experiencing fall on the east coast

-visiting John C. at Cornell

-going to a Tyrone Wells concert in Philly

-visiting Katie’s family in Ohio

-going to “Field of Screams”

-playing “Street Fighter” on Sega Genesis with JM and Katie

-and getting to see my girl every day (well almost every day).

Generosity

As my California departure date approached I became the recipient of numerous acts of generosity. Acts of generosity so pure and lovely that it brought me to tears.

I did not have a lot of money (I still don’t) when I was getting ready to embark on my trip. I had not received any sort of income in over a month and the funds in my bank account were slowly diminishing. I was not totally sure about employment once I arrived in Harrisburg. Katie and her roommates were generous with the time and effort that they put into looking for a job for me even while I was still in Santa Barbara. Katie’s roommate Des worked some magic to set me up at a book warehouse where she used to work. But even that was not 100% and the amount of hours was ambivalent. So, that goes to say, I was trying to be very frugal with the money that I had because I was not sure exactly how much money I would spend driving across the country and I wasn’t sure how much money, if any, I’d be making once I got there.

My plan was to drive as far as I could and, not wanting to shell out the $50 to spend a night in a motel, sleep in my car in a parking lot or something. However, I’m not sure how much sleep I actually would have gotten considering that my car was absolutely packed full of my stuff and I hardly had enough room to drive nonetheless try to sleep. Knowing the danger and potential harm in this scenario, Joe, a dear friend of mine, and his wife Becca, gave me money to spend at a motel so that I would not have to sleep in my car in a parking lot. They had even looked up the exact halfway point between Santa Barbara, CA and Letcher, SD (where my parents live), which turned out to be Grand Junction, CO. Then they looked up a cheap motel in Grand Junction and wrote the directions to it on the back of the envelope. That kind of generosity is magnificent and inspirational. Thank you so much.

Another dear friend of mine, Ryan, helped me move my stuff from the apartment into my car as I was packing up. I know that was very hard for us both. He also bought me a six-pack of my favorite Gatorades (the Glacier Ice flavor) for the road. And to top it off, he surprised me with a gift card to spend on gas that he wrapped in a note. I opened the note and found the gift card while I was alone in a cheap motel in CO after my first day of driving, that kind of generosity is disarming. Thank you Ry.

Yet another dear friend of mine, Evan, went out a bought me a gift before we had to say goodbye to each other. He knew that I was a California boy and that Pennsylvania’s seasons aren’t as mild as they are in good old Cali. My wardrobe was not exactly winterized. So he got me something very practical: a nice, warm, soft, fleece pullover, which I now try to wear anytime I have the excuse to. That kind of generosity is exceptionally considerate. Thanks Mijo.

It doesn’t end there. I ran out of contact lenses and was in need of more. Drew and Ryan went to Sears with me and paid for six months worth of contact lenses for me (it was a collective gift from my roommates: Drew, Ryan, Tom, Evan, and Cody). And when Sears said they couldn’t ship them to me in Pennsylvania, Ryan picked them up from Sears and mailed them to me himself. Once again, wow. That kind of generosity is amazing.

Upon arriving in Harrisburg I was yet still the recipient of more, overwhelming generosity. I expected to move into an empty room in my apartment and I would need to find a mattress to sleep on as well as other furnishings. What I found though, was a room already fully furnished for me: there was a bed all made up in the corner, complete with box spring, mattress, sheets, comforter, and pillow. There was a fan and one of those circular, “incubator chairs.” There was a dresser with a lamp and a picture of Katie and me on it. There was a stand in the corner with an ivy plant in a pot on it. There was a nightstand next to the bed with a bowl of Reese’s Sticks (my favorite candy) and two VHS tapes: Kindergarten Cop and Star Wars II. And last but certainly not least, there was a poster of Clay Aiken on the wall. All this was done in secret by my wonderful girlfriend Katie. And John-Michael my roommate who also aided in this process, moved into the other bedroom so that I could have the larger one. Wow. That kind of generosity is unbelievable.

I was also the recipient of numerous people’s generous time and prayer. Thank you. Tom, thanks for the homemade Bananas Foster the night before I left. Nate and Reid, thank you for your prayers. To the PC team, thanks for making one of my last nights in Santa Barbara such a fun and memorable one. Cody, thanks for the blessings and encouragement as I got into my car to leave. Dad, thanks for the money for the tolls, the gas, and the lodging. Benji, thanks for the chips and salsa, the comfy couch, and for sharing that game we both know and love (even though the teams that were playing were the teams I know and hate). Alana, thanks for the note. Thank you to anyone that I may have forgotten to mention. Forgive me, I am a horrible person.

I found it difficult to be the recipient of so much generosity. The pride in me wanted to deny that I needed help and put up the façade that I could do it on my own. But my friend Joe reminded me saying, “Craig, we are in a position to give right now, and you are in a position to receive.” So each gift I humbly and graciously accepted. I can only hope that I can someday give with the amazing, disarming, unbelievable type of generosity that I was the recipient of.

With your generosity you have sheltered me, given me food and drink, propelled my journey, given me sight, encouraged my soul, warmed my heart, and made me realize that I am a very fortunate man. Thank you.

Field of Screams (Part II)

Little did we know as we were tiptoeing through the mud and pouring rain that we were venturing into the epicenter of some sort of necromantic deathstar. Now, F.o.S. has three attractions: the “Den of Darkness,” the “Haunted Hayride,” and a haunted insane asylum that I forgot the name of. Seeing as the hayride would get us absolutely drenched, we decided to skip it and started our adventure in the haunted insane asylum. Now, even though it was pouring, there was still a good amount of people at F.o.S. on this evening. And there’s something about the kind of people that make it out to F.o.S., very similar to the kind of people that you are likely to run into at a county fair or freak show type attraction. These places seem to attract all sorts of deviants and misfits in today’s society. So we really had no way of telling who was actually a paid actor, employed by F.o.S. to scare people, or who was just some dark-souled human being that just enjoyed creeping people out.

The Den of Darkness and the haunted insane asylum were very similar. We were let into the attraction by an F.o.S. employee (hopefully) in about groups of eight. And just by chance, I was the first person in both groups, followed by Katie gripping my arm, followed by Karissa gripping her arm, followed by other random peeps. The attractions were surprisingly long and pretty well done. Each “room” had a different theme: creepy girl in the attic with an empty nail gun, creepy clown, creepy insane person in a straight jacket, creepy doctor/surgeon, creepy chainsaw psycho, creepy guy with a big hammer psycho, and so on. There were parts in the Den of Darkness that were just that: darkness. Pitch black. And being the leader, I had to feel my way around and try to figure out where the heck it is that we’re suppose to go. Most of the time I would reach out and touch something cold and hard, like the wall or something. A couple times I reached out and touched something warm and soft, most likely an actor or some poor soul who never made it out. I myself was never groped or violated, I am thankful for this.

Another event that is worth noting happened in the asylum. There was one part where we had to push our way through two, giant, black, foamy, air-filled things. Again, being the leader, I had no clue what I was doing or where I was suppose to go. So we pressed on through the giant, black butt cheeks. It was miserable. They smelled and were grimy and slippery from all the wet people passing through them. At one point Karissa yelled out “Oh no! Swine Flu!” which was the scariest thing I heard all night considering the hundreds of people who have passed through the butt cheeks before us. So as we pressed through, we tried to separate the cheeks so that it wouldn’t touch our face so that we wouldn’t contract swine flu.

The haunted housed were really fun though. Most of the time I just laughed and tried to converse with the actors, who would occasionally talk back. Katie was always targeted by the actors, probably because she was trying to hide behind me and Karissa the whole time so they knew that she was the squeamish one.

Upon finishing both attractions, we made our way back out to the car through the mud and the rain. Getting into the car, we realized that what we had joked about earlier had indeed become reality. My car was stuck in the mud. I tried for several unsuccessful minutes to free my car from its muddy prison. The only thing it succeeded in was digging my car tires deeper into the mud and kicking up some mud on back of the car in front of us. So, in the pouring rain, my lovely loafers covered in mud, I went around to the front of my car and tried to push my car out of its stuck-ness while Katie wo-manned the wheel.

Surprisingly, we were making process. And as we finally were getting out of the rut I hear a person behind me yell a number of expletives about being covered in mud. I instantly thought that this person had walked in front of the car and gotten some mud on him and was complaining about that. But he was actually the owner of the vehicle in front of us (which was surprising because he was about my age the car looked like it should belong to his grandfather). He was accompanied by several friends who also swore and grumbled about the car being “covered” in mud.

Now, let’s unpack the situation a little bit. We are in the middle of a field that has been turned into a volatile muddy hell. There is mud everywhere. The people and the cars are all covered with it. It is raining very hard. These people walk out to their car to find a person struggling and slipping in the mud and pouring rain, trying to free a car from being stuck in the mud. Instead of asking the struggling individual if he needs any help, or offering to move their car first so that we could try to pull forward, they decide to look at the lifeless, soulless, inanimate hunk of metal that has some mud on it and take pity on IT, and hurl expletives at HIM.

So, not really knowing how to respond, and being out of breath, I responded, “I’m sorry man” and proceeded pushing the car. Finally, the car got out of the rut and we were able to back up. But the car parked behind us parked to close so we had to try to do a 45-point turn to get out of the stinking hell of a parking lot. As I was maneuvering this 45-point turn, I saw the people looking at the mud, and looking and point at us. Feeling kind of bad, but also wanting them to stop complaining, I got out of the car, took of my Westmont hoodie, and offered it to them to clean up the mud on the bumper of their car. The response that I received I never would have expected. One of the women that was in the group didn’t even look at me but said, “No don’t take it, it’ll probably scratch it.” What? Oh that’s right, I purposely got mud on your car and then went back into my car and stuffed my hoodie with sticks, rocks, razor blades, and glass and then offered it to you in the hopes that you would take me up on your offer and I could stealthily damage your vehicle. You caught me. I responded out of disbelief that I had to explain and defend my offer to them. I simply said, “It’s not going to scratch your car, its cotton.” At this point, none of the people had made eye contact with me still, and the owner of the vehicle (or the grandson of the owner of the vehicle) annoyingly said “Don’t worry about it,” so I apologized one last time and finished the final 23 points in my 45-point turn and exited the lot.

It makes me sad to think about this experience. Not just because I was the victim in it. But because it’s a microcosm of the world we live in. Where things matter more than people. Where the human sense to help others in need is gone. Where we look out for ourselves and our stuff and that’s about it. And when we’re caught in our own ridiculousness we just dig deeper in: “Don’t take it, it’ll only scratch the car.” I made a joke to Karissa and Katie after this event transpired but it was rooted in seriousness. I wanted to remark to those people that of all the scary things that I have encountered tonight, that you are the scariest, because you’re real. It’s sad, but it’s true. Lord have mercy on us.

Despite the stressfulness and craziness of the night, it was really fun and enjoyable. It was fun because I got to experience these things with Katie and Karissa and laugh, or scream, or stress, or be disgusted with them. It will be a night that I will remember for awhile.

Field of Screams (Part I)

Because this story is quite lengthy, I have divided it into two parts.

Part I:

Tonight (tonight being 10/23 when I originally wrote this post) Katie, her friend Karissa, and I went to a place called “Field of Screams” (F.o.S.) in nearby (40 minutes away) Lancaster. Karissa received a few “complimentary tickets” from a neighbor of hers. Though, at first glance, it obviously appears to be a benevolent, kind gift on the part of her neighbor, after experiencing F.o.S. I am not sure how truly benevolent the gift was.

I did not know much of anything about F.o.S. other than the fact that it is a haunted attraction field/park/hell-on-earth that comes and goes with that ironic holiday (“holy-day”?) that we call Halloween. I figured people come to this place, pay a few bucks, walk around a haunted house or ride around on a haunted hay ride (who came up with that idea by the way?), get scared, and then safely return home to their non-haunted placed of residence. I was, for the most part, pretty accurate in my assumption. But don’t let the predictability of the aforementioned assumption skew your expectations as I delve into the details of that interesting night. Because it wasn’t quite as simple.

So we had been planning on going to F.o.S. on Friday for the whole week. However, as the weekend approached, so did adverse weather conditions. It started raining on Thursday night and that rain continued all the way through Friday night. And this was no cute, sprinkly rain. This was full on rain. Not quite Noah and the Ark type proportions but still…RAIN.

So Karissa, Katie, and I gathered at Katie’s house with our complimentary tickets in hand, ready to begin our journey. I realize now how much power those complimentary tickets held in influencing our decision. Looking back on it now it seems so illogical. We were going to drive 40 minutes (at least) in torrential rainfall to a place called “Field of Screams” of which we knew next to nothing about, save for the facts that were obvious because of the name alone: that it was a field, and therefore outdoors, and that there would be screaming, and therefore fright, pain, terror, destruction, anxiety, and other brightly connotated words. But we were obligated to go because we could not let the complimentary tickets go to waste. The risks of death or serious mental trauma were worth the value of redeeming those golden complimentary tickets.

So, we set out on our journey. And, being the idiot that I am, I volunteered to drive. I volunteered to drive my car with the tires that were balder than the heads of all the males on my mother’s side of the family (and therefore balder than my future head will be L). A brief side-note: I had already experienced a couple of “white-knuckle” moments where my car lost traction momentarily. Once while trying to accelerate up a not-so-steep incline after a brief rain, once while trying to pull out of the Susquehanna Post Office, and a couple of times while driving in the snow on my way to visit John at Cornell. So all that to say this: my kind gesture may have been exactly that, kind, but it was also dumb.

So, as we get on the freeway and begin to “Follow the screams to Field of Screams” (the local radio ad slogan) I am already kind of nervous about how hard it’s raining. I have the windshield wipers going full boar and I’m going five MPH less than the speed limit (which in most of PA is 55 MPH). I’m driving with both my hands on the wheel, ten o’clock and two o’clock (which I never do), my knuckles are white from gripping so hard, my gaze is focused, my mind sharp, my demeanor…kind of nervous. I’m not that great of a conversationalist is this mode so although there may have been attempts to include me in conversation or to ask me questions, these attempts were not ignored, they were simply not even heard because all of my information intake capacities were currently being occupied. I was one with my car which I was hoping would remain one with the road.

Adding to my nervousness is the fact that the PA highways seem so inadequately lit. I’m sure that the fact that there was already limited visibility due to the rain was a factor, but I couldn’t help thinking to myself, “Wow, I wish that this highway was a little bit more lit, just a little bit.” Things went okay for the most part. No serious hydroplaning episodes. One near-crash experience though: as we neared an off-ramp to get onto another freeway. Again, because of the raining-cats-and-dogs precipitation, and because of the lack of light (thank you sun; thank you state of PA), and because of the poor engineering of this particular off-ramp (Again, thank you state of PA) the off-ramp approached at a much quicker rate than was expected. So as I merged to get into the off-ramp lane, no quicker did I look in front of me did I see big, yellow arrow signs point to the right which also corresponded, as they usually do, with a dramatic change in the composition of the road. What was once straight now was very much less straight. I basically had to slam on my breaks to slow down enough to make the curve. Now, remember back to the parts of this story where I mentioned the amount of rain and the amount of baldness of my tires. Well these things were not comforting in the moment that we were basically gliding across the top of the road like Michelle Kwan. Miraculously, we did not end up in a ditch on the side of the highway and we slowed down enough to make the turn (thank you Jesus).

So, we eventually made it to our destination…well almost. In order to get to the parking lot, we had to drive around the whole field. Again, not knowing what to expect or where to go, as we are driving around on this muddy road we see a man in a bright orange vest with one of those orange baton things that you see the guys on the tarmac at the airports waving. As we approached, Katie and Karissa joked about whether the guy with all the orange going on was actually a parking attendant or whether he was one of the “actors” in F.o.S. and this was just “part of the show” and he was going to try to scare us. So I pulled up next to him and rolled down my window to ask where to go. The answer to whether the man was an actor in F.o.S. was ambivalent. Not fully able to see his face because of the dark/rain, and because upon speaking, his mouth revealed a lack of teeth and a gargley (the sound you make when you gargle) voice, which therefore made understanding his words pretty much impossible, all added to a “should we be frightened? Should we be laughing? Should we be serious? Should we be pitiful?” reaction. Not really gaining the answer to my original query, I just drove away in the hopes that the parking lot would soon arrive and that the man would not chase after us with a hook or scythe in hand.

However, when we finally arrived at the parking lot it did not add much comfort. Because the lot was on a grass field, and because it had been raining non stop for about 24 hours, the field was transformed into a muddy inferno. I parked in the spot where another bright orange clad parking attendant was directing me and Katie, Karissa, and I joked about getting stuck in the mud when we try to leave. We left my car and tiptoed through the mud and the pouring rain towards the entrance to officially begin our experience at F.o.S.